


the 1

by gayassBenny



Series: folklore [1]
Category: My Babysitter's A Vampire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-08-10
Updated: 2020-08-10
Packaged: 2021-03-05 18:52:48
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25830118
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gayassBenny/pseuds/gayassBenny
Summary: Benny thinks back on his relationship with Ethan.
Relationships: Ethan Morgan/Benny Weir
Series: folklore [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1874197
Comments: 1
Kudos: 22





	the 1

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when folklore came out and I swore to God I wasn't gonna write a songfic? Yeah well I'm doing the whole album and there's nothing you can do to stop me

Benny removed his guitar from where it was slung over his shoulder the second he entered his studio apartment. He’d had several auditions in the past month. Most of them failures, but he’d gotten a few callbacks. He was confident about this one though. Something about it just felt right. 

A lot of things had been feeling just right recently. His life was really going uphill. Maybe it was finally being done with school, or maybe it was not having to worry about where his next meal was coming from for the first time since he’d moved to New York. Most likely though, it was probably the therapy. He’d spent most of his life feeling either crippling anxiety or debilitating numbness, which he knew wasn’t normal but for a long time, he was always too afraid to admit it out loud. 

He flipped the lights on and headed into the kitchen to pull some leftovers out of the fridge. Eating leftovers would probably make the average person feel melancholy at best but Benny loved what they represented. He’d finally stepped out of his comfort zone and gone out with his co-workers. It wasn’t exactly the most exciting thing in the world but to Benny, it was a big step. He’d finally had people worth hanging out with again. He had friends again. 

He threw himself onto his bed and opened the lid on the styrofoam container. He pulled his phone out of his pocket before going to town on the freezing cold, slightly stale meal in his lap. He spent a few minutes scrolling through Twitter before deciding to switch over to Facebook. It was, without a doubt, his least favorite app. But it was the only thing his grandma knew how to use and he didn’t want any of his friends from high school seeing him tweet lyrics he’d written to the few hundred followers he had. He wasn’t ashamed of it or anything. It just felt too personal. Like they weren’t supposed to see that side of him. 

He scrolled on autopilot as he shoveled forkfuls of pasta into his mouth. His aunt had a barbeque earlier that day, Sarah and Erica went on some cheesy date to the park, his grandma posted a gallery of photos of her new dog. All the usual stuff. Right before he was about to lose interest and switch over to another equally mindnumbing app something caught his attention. 

Sarah had made an absurdly long and heartfelt birthday post for Rory. Embarrassing high school photos and all. His heart dropped. How the hell did he forget Rory’s birthday? They weren’t exactly best friends anymore, in fact, they very rarely talked. But he still felt like a dick. 

He went to Rory’s profile with every intention of typing him out any kind of birthday wish. Hopefully something cheesy and from the heart but knowing him it would end up being three sentences max before he started feeling like a bother. 

Right as he was about to hit the message button he made the mistake of scrolling. He just couldn’t help it, it was like something had come over him and forced him to just take a peek. It was a colossal mistake. Rory had posted pictures from throughout the day. He’d spent it with Jesse, obviously but about halfway into the post someone Benny didn’t recognize appeared in the pictures. He didn’t think much of it. It would be ridiculous for Rory not to make at least one new friend by now. 

He swiped again and his stomach turned itself inside out. They were outside. Maybe in someone’s backyard? Rory was front and center making a horrible face with obnoxious heartshaped sunglasses on. Next to him, sitting in a shitty metal chair giving a puzzled look, was Ethan. 

He didn’t know why it caught him so off guard. He knew Rory was still friends with Ethan, it only made sense for him to spend his birthday with him. But it had been so long since he’d actually seen him. Ethan was pretty camera shy. They hung out a lot because they lived in the same city, and Rory was pretty public about that, but Ethan was always tagged as the photographer or just briefly mentioned in the caption. It was so much different than actually seeing his face again. 

He didn’t have anything against Ethan. They’d had a pretty clean break up. It wasn’t like either of them had done anything, or even that they’d grown apart. They just didn’t have a choice. Benny was moving out of the country to pursue music and Ethan was staying in Ontario. That was probably what hurt the most. It’d be so much easier if he hated Ethan, or even if he’d just fallen out of love with him. But he hadn’t. They just didn’t work out. 

Benny took a deep breath before swiping again. His grip on his phone tightened, his heart sank for a moment. Ethan was sitting next to the guy from before, which wasn’t a big deal but he had his arm around him. Ethan had another guys arm around him. He looked pretty visibly uncomfortable but that was most likely from being on camera. At least he was confident enough to have his picture taken at all. 

He really wanted to be mad. He wanted to feel something, anger, jealousy, hatred, anything. After the initial shock wore off he just felt… nothing. He was pretty sure Ethan was his soulmate. His one and only. When they were in high school it was the best feeling in the world but now it just made him feel empty. Like he’d found the one and he just let it go to waste. 

Their relationship had never been normal. They’d done everything out of order, they didn’t even know when their anniversary was because they didn’t even acknowledge that they were in a relationship until they were saying “I love you.” The others used to tease them for it but Benny knew it didn’t matter that they didn’t do anything the conventional way. It just mattered that he loved Ethan. 

And he still did. He hadn’t spoken to him in over four years but his face still gave him butterflies. He still wanted to give him everything in the world. And if this new guy could do that for him why would Benny try to stop it? He didn’t care if Ethan was with him. All that mattered to him was that Ethan was happy, and from the looks of it, he was. 

Maybe it was for the best that they’d ended things when they did. He supposed it was better for him to deal with the hollow, dull ache than for them to have ended tragically. He was glad he could look back at everything and be able to smile. All of their memories together were fond ones. If they’d attempted to force things to work that most likely wouldn’t be the case. Or maybe they would’ve stayed together forever. Maybe they could’ve made long-distance work until he was successful enough to convince Ethan to come live with him. But probably not. One of them would’ve ended up hurt. And he really didn’t want to hurt Ethan. 

He smiled. Ethan really did seem happy. Sure he looked confused in one picture and uncomfortable in the other but the fact that he even allowed them to be posted was a really good sign. He remembered Ethan having horrible self-esteem issues for most of his life. He always felt so sad that Ethan didn’t know how beautiful he really was. 

Maybe he really was the one. Benny didn’t think he’d be fine with the idea of Ethan being with anyone but him but the idea of this guy making Ethan happy in a way he never could seemed like a fair enough trade. Sure he wished it could’ve been him, but he knew it couldn’t. He’d lost his chance and he was fine with that. He wasn’t exactly happy about it but it was fine. Ethan was happy and that was all that mattered.

He clicked on Ethans profile from where Rory had tagged him. It was obviously private, that was just the kind of person Ethan was. They’d decided it was best to just cut all ties after the breakup. It wasn’t like there was any bad blood, they just knew it’d be too painful for them to keep in contact. 

Benny’s thumb hovered over the add friend button. He knew he wasn’t over Ethan. Sometimes he’d think he saw him on the bus or in a restaurant and it was enough to make his heart ache. He would probably never be over him, but he missed him. He missed being his friend, he missed telling him every little detail about his life, he missed seeing his stupid smile, he missed everything about him. He knew it would be painful talking to Ethan without getting to be his anymore. Without getting to touch him whenever he wanted, or sleep next to him at night. But he felt like the only thing worse than that was not having Ethan in his life anymore. As happy as he was, the past five years he’d just felt like he was missing something. 

He took a deep breath and selected add friend.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading. I know this wasn't the most interesting thing I've ever written but I hope it satiated you at least a little bit


End file.
